Lost 250 lbs, Gained a Life!

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Why Navigating Weight Loss

Hi! Welcome to Navigating Weight Loss. My name is Regina and today I’d like to talk about the title of our program. Navigating Weight Loss was born from a blog post that I wrote last year called There’s No Afters in Weight Loss and it spoke to the point that throughout my 30-years of gaining and losing weight that whenever I had a before picture and then an after picture my next picture would inevitably be an after but look very suspiciously like a before. So, I had to go into it this time with no afters. If I post a picture, I’ll post a picture with the date but it doesn’t show before because an after gives you a feeling like an end and then where do you go?

And that was the same issue I had with the word journey. Anyone who’s losing weight talks about their journey. Really, any transformative part of your life is a journey and what didn’t sit quite well with me was that I already felt like I was on a journey – I’m alive – that’s a journey so this was just a part of it, it isn’t the whole thing but I couldn’t figure out how to quite articulate that. Then I heard this speech from Joshua Rosenthal he’s the founder of the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and he said something that gave me this truly Oprah Winfrey style AHA style moment. He said “Wellness is not a destination, it’s the vehicle.” And I loved it! That’s exactly what I was trying to communicate. We aren’t going somewhere – well we are going somewhere – we’re already on that journey but what vehicle are you in getting there?

See when you’re over 200 pounds there is this romantic and beautiful place that people look forward to and it’s called Onderland not like Alice in Wonderland but O-N-E onderland and you fixate on getting there like there’s something amazing that happens at 199 pounds that doesn’t happen at 200 pounds. But there’s just something fantastic about that place in your brain but what happens when you get there? For me, whenever I attained a type of goal like that I would become comfortable and complacent and next thing you know old behaviors start to creep back up. So, when people ask me “You’ve lost 250 pounds Regina, what’s your goal?” I always say the same thing: lifelong health and something that I can maintain.

I’m not trying to get to some mystical, magical size, I’m certainly not attaching a number to my health and self-esteem – something that I had done for many years and did not serve me! I want to maintain a healthy lifestyle and I want across this ocean of my life in the best possible vehicle that I can be in, that I can maintain that I can accomplish goals. THAT is what it means to me. So, navigating weight loss isn’t just focusing on this teeny, tiny part of life’s journey that were on it’s about getting that vehicle in the best possible shape to cross this ocean that we’re already on! So, welcome to Navigating Weight Loss. There’s plenty more to come. Bye!